Tuesday, January 18, 2011

When I showed you my Chalkboard Christmas Card Display last month you knew it would be appearing again, didn't you? If so, right you were! My new favorite item in my kitchen couldn't be neglected for long, especially when there is another sweet holiday around the corner. So I made this beautiful sparkly Valentine's day banner.

I started off with some creamy white burlap, a little flag template, and one of my favorite new tools, my Silhouette Cutting Machine, to make the stencil.

Before I had my Silhouette, I was a big fan of the pencil transfer method of getting letters and numbers onto my projects. But obviously that doesn't work for something like this, I am DREADFUL at doing such things free hand, and it is such a time (and sanity) saver to let the Silhouette cut out my stencils for me. I need all of the time and sanity that I can get, so purchasing this machine was a small price to pay! :)

I picked out a basic font in the Silhouette Software, adjusted the size of the letters to fit my flags perfectly, and a few minutes later I had these great stencils! But you could easily cut these stencils out by hand or use any store bought letters to get the same effect.

I made sure to use a piece of card stock for my stencils that had a glossy finish so that it didn't get soggy in the middle of my stenciling. I soaked my foam brush in Elmer's glue, and stenciled the glue onto the burlap.

Keeping the stencil in place, I covered the glue in a small pile of fine red glitter, shook of the excess and set each flag aside to dry.

A few times I put on too thin of a layer of glue, but if you do this, don't worry!

I used a toothpick to apply a little more glue to the gap on the letter, added some more glitter...

and it was perfect!

Once you have a fun pile of sparkly lettered flags, hang a string and clip them on! I'm using mine on my chalkboard, but they would look gorgeous across a mantle, window, or just along the wall!

I was originally thinking that I would glue my flags to the string, but since Valentines Day is still almost a month away, I know I'll switch it up and rearrange it a bit in the meantime. More than likely I will add a few photos of my valentines in between the x's and o's.

Look how perfectly the letters came out thanks to my Silhouette stencil!

Sharp lines and fun little detailed fonts, with swoops and tails. Just what I like!

I put one of these Valentine banners in my Etsy shop, so click here if you'd like one just like this.

I'll be linking my banner to these fun parties, so swing by for some more fun Valentine's Day ideas!